Thursday, December 18, 2014

So, Abby has been here for about 10 days now. Let’s see, we got her Friday the 5th and so far she’s tried to eat the Christmas tree, chewed on a couple presents and the fake present box, gotten sick (there’s a reason I bought a Bissel carpet cleaner back in the day), racked up a 170 dollar vet bill, and today chewed up my USB cord for my printer.

But she’s become quite the member of the household. Gawd. Even Beta is a little more interested in the back yard with Abby around.

And although she’s feeling better today and both the dogs were up and had a walk already (and she chewed up a vital USB cord), it’s a little early around here to really get going.

This is what the animals who live here are doing at 7:30 AM-

Hey, could you turn off that light please-It’s really annoying.

Dude, seriously.

Go bother the dogs…but do you have another pillow-two aren’t enough.

Let me just say the only one up was Jack-

I will not sit still for you to take a picture of me at the food dish for all your friends to laugh at. I will not.

However, I will intentionally and pointedly walk away on the counter to show everyone that I will not be controlled by you.

Is that more food over there….????

Sigh.

We went to Dave’s brother’s house last weekend for a Christmas get together. No pictures. But lots of food and good company.

Dave’s son and girlfriend were here for a few days. Again no pictures. But enjoyable visit for sure.

I shouldn’t be responsible for the documentation of Dave’s peeps. But apparently he’s not snapping up the pics either.

Monday, December 8, 2014

So, because I feel the need to save the world one dog at a time I sent in an application to the Beagle Freedom Project as an interested adopter of a beagle dog. (We miss Trixie Noodle) This is an organization that rescues and places dogs that are used as laboratory animals. Many labs like to use Beagles or hound like dogs because they are easy to handle and are cooperative. (As one worker told me there is a reason they don’t use pit bulls-although I have never had a problem with those dogs either). There are breeders who provide dogs for just lab work. Seriously. I hope Karma comes back at them.

Anyway, I didn’t think anything of it because I was certain there were probably a lot of people wanting to adopt and I would be low on the list.

Wrong. I got a call about 3-4 weeks later saying there was a dog in MN available. And last Friday Abby came to us to trial, and then adopt if it all works out. She has been fostered up in Elk River for about 5-8 weeks. She did go to a house but snapped at the other dog when that dog got too close to Abby’s food. (We’ve seen that before!)

So here’s Abby. She spent 11 years in a lab in Tennessee. She was used for arthritis research but unsure what she was used for. She has a tattoo in her ear and a little scar on her leg which might be from IV’s. She doesn’t know her name very well and when she first got here didn’t know how to go up or down the stairs. Although down was way easier than up.

She’s getting it now. She’s having some problems with being house broken and likes to eat the Christmas tree. Not sure about that.

Abby with a little piece of tree to munch on later.

Beta doesn’t seem to care about Abby much.

Although when Beta thought it would be nice to eat the leftovers of Abby’s bone-well, that brought on a little skirmish. Abby spotted that infraction of etiquette from across the room and took off like a shot to bite Beta on the head (not really a bite, more like a lot of slobber) which prompted a snarly face from Beta and a stand off which ended in a draw. (Beta kept his piece of the bone). We’ve had skirmishes before with other dogs so we didn’t give it much thought. Well, what we thought was we won’t let that happen again. Maybe. Hopefully.

So, we are waiting to see how well she fits in. It’s been good so far. Some problems with housebreaking but we think that might get better with time. Went all last night with no accidents. A little accident this AM but I should have known that she was needing to get out what with all the pacing. So, I’ll be a little more vigilant.

She loves her walks though. She is a little weak in the back which I was told was common in dogs raised in the lab because the don’t use their back legs a whole lot.

I’m not sure what she is thinking-it must be all new and overwhelming. Poor old girl. But she’s free now.

And, as you can see, we have a tree.

I stratigically placed the fake present over the cat barf that I discovered when I put the Christmas tree skirt down. Apparently I figured I’d clean it up this year.